Remember the Ladies

Context: Abigail Adams wrote this letter to her husband John in 1776, while he was away serving as a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Audience: John Adams

Purpose: To remind John and perhaps other delegates to the Congress that the ideas about equality that they were fighting for should apply to women as well as men.

Historical Significance: This letter reveals that the language of independence and equality used by the Founding Fathers to promote the rights of the colonies before and during the American Revolution influenced other members of society such as women and African Americans. These groups used the rhetoric of liberty and equality that became popular during the Revolutionary era to argue for their own freedoms.